


blue lips, blue veins

by Jessicanity



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, I'm Sorry, Nightmares, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 10:11:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17620499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessicanity/pseuds/Jessicanity
Summary: It's been nearly a year since the survivors escaped for the final time.





	blue lips, blue veins

**Author's Note:**

> "He took a step but then felt tired  
> He said, I'll rest a little while  
> But when he tried to walk again  
> He wasn't a child  
> And all the people hurried past  
> Real fast and no one ever smiled
> 
> Blue lips  
> Blue veins  
> Blue, the color of the planet from far, far away"
> 
> \-- Regina Spektor, "Blue Lips"

It had been a year now, nearly to the day. A year since the survivors escaped for the last time, when they ran not to the campfire but into actual  _ daylight. _ They'd all been spit out into a world they didn't recognise, but at least they were together. That was something. 

 

Of the group, Quentin and Feng were those who found the world most like the one they'd left. For others, decades had past, and the life they'd had long gone, and the world they'd returned to was new and frightening. Of course, in some cases the world was better than the one they'd left. Like, well, not having zombies in it for an example. 

 

Adjusting to the world had still been an almost impossible task. None of them had any ID, money, anything. Most of them no longer had families to go back to for help. Quentin had considered seeking out his father, but ultimately decided against it. No one would believe anything the survivors might have to say, and they'd all agreed not to try and tell their story. They hadn't escaped hell just to be committed to a mental hospital. (Quentin had looked up Nancy, though, just with an online search. She was doing well. A gallery would be showing some of her art in the next two months. Quentin wouldn't go.)

 

And so to start them off, Ace had managed to hustle some pool and card games, getting them money for food and a single motel room, where they all took turns in the shower with no hot water, just to feel clean for the first time in an eternity. They'd slept on the floor.

 

Well, most of them. Quentin had stayed awake, because who knew where the killers were now. Where Freddy was now.

 

But when the dreamwalker eventually succumbed to sleep on the fourth night of their freedom, there was no sign of Freddy. Quentin still had vivid nightmares, of course. They all did at least sometimes. But he could change them, without Freddy there snatch control back. And even when he did see his tormentor in his dreams, it was a pale imitation created by his own trauma, and fairly simple to will away. Quentin was finally, _finally_ able to get some sleep.

 

Bit by bit, Ace and a few of the others were able to earn enough to begin to supply fake IDs, fake transcripts, to each survivor. Tapp didn't like it, but acknowledged that there wasn't exactly a better option. 

 

Over time they were all able to get menial jobs. Some of them with actual skills were given fake transcripts that let them get proper work; Adam was teaching again. Quentin was due to start online university courses in a few months.

 

Their combined income was enough to rent a house. Nothing big, not nearly enough room for all of them, but they'd all agreed they didn't want to split up. They were like family now, and the only ones who would understand the trauma of what had happened. They had to stay together. And besides, they were more than used to being in each other's space. Life wasn't easy, they had to work at integrating into a society that would never know what they'd been through and never give them a break. But they were free.

 

Quentin's new nightmares had been persisting for about two weeks.

 

"You always have nightmares, though, Quen," Claudette tried to soothe the young dreamwalker as he paced in the kitchen, a mug of coffee in his hands. Until then, he had been off caffeine for nearly a year.

 

"It's different to those," he insisted. "And it's the same one, over and over. He's holding me under and I'm choking on the water and I can't breathe."

 

"Yeah, but… he's gone, right? You said yourself, he hasn't been in your dreams at all. Not the real him. You're safe now."

 

_ Hey, Quentin. Nightmare's over. _

 

"... okay," he said, but he didn't go to sleep that night.

 

They were planning something like a party to celebrate a year of freedom. Really, it probably just meant good food, some booze, and a movie night. But everyone was excited about it.

 

**Beep.**

 

Quentin's watch on the nightstand beeped once for the hour at midnight. Sometimes it reminded him of the reverse bear traps, and he'd flinch. This time, though, he just rolled over and looked at it. 

 

_ Happy one year to us. _

 

He put the watch on the nightstand and rolled back over just in time to see the flash of blades out of the corner of his eye.

 

Then they're in his throat.

 

"Happy one year," he hears Freddy taunt, and then he's out of the dreamworld. It feels like drowning, it really does, and he tries to call for help but he has no air, his mouth and throat are full of blood and he _knew_ the dreams were real but no one had listened.

 

It's Feng who discovers his cold, pale body on the bloodied bed, and her scream brings the others. On one pillow are smeared words, or attempts at them, written by the young dreamwalker in his own blood as his life had ebbed away.

 

_**Warn Nanc-----** _

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry


End file.
